Fragment of a Political Treatise in a Dunhuang School Manual

Abstract

The paper contains the translation and study of the fragment Дx-11656 from the collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, RAS, pertaining to educational material used in a local school in the vicinity of Dunhuang under the Tang and the Five Dynasties. The document bears the title Wu chang 五常 (“Five permanencies”) and includes analyses of the categories ren 仁, yi 義, li 禮 and zhi 智 (the xin 信 category is not included), key virtues on which Confucian education in China was based. The explanation of zhi (“wisdom”) contains a political remonstrance by Wang Gui 王珪 (570–639), a dignitary of the Tang dynasty, addressed to Taizong, the second Tang emperor (r. 626–649), supplemented with the latter's approving reply. This text was included in modified form in the famous work of Wu Jing 吳兢 (670–749) Zhenguan zhengyao 貞觀正要 (“Essentials of government of the Zhenguan Period”), which contains dialogues between Taizong and his chancellors on governance and ethics. The characteristics of the other noblemen from the beginning of the Tang era, such as Gao Shilian 高士廉, Hou Junji 侯君集, Zhang Gongjin 張公謹 and Wei Zheng 魏徵, appear in the same fragment. The use of a political treatise as teaching material in a remote locality is evidence of the high standard of formal education in China during the Tang dynasty.